... an uneven but ultimately charming %u2013 and sad %u2013 look at the disappearance of a centuries-old cultural tradition whose impact on our own culture has been inestimable.
Comment
12/21/07
Yiddish Theater: A Love Story (2007)
87 %
Reviews Counted: 15 Fresh: 13 Rotten:2 Average Rating: 6.5/10
Runtime: 80 mins
Synopsis: Enter the funny, larger-than-life world of Yiddish Theater today through this documentary film about the amazing woman who has kept the oldest running Yiddish Theater in America alive. Zypora Spaisman is a Holocaust survivor who conquers all hearts in her passion for art, life and Yiddish.... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Shifra Lerer
Reviews
1 - 15 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Given its origins, it's not surprising that Yiddish Theater: A Love Story has a catch-as-catch-can feeling to it. But nothing can take away from the flavor of being caught up in the battles and dreams of a formidable group of people.
11/30/07
Top Critic
Yiddish Theater is a melancholy work, as well it should be, but it's also almost giddy much of the time with the delight of discovery, preservation and nostalgia.
11/30/07
Katzir's documentary is on the cusp of posing worthy questions about American assimilation and cultural evolution, but it'd rather appeal to guilt and sympathy for art that we never get to feel.
11/30/07
Although the film's highly personal approach ultimately pays off in terms of heartfelt emotion -- particularly at its bittersweet conclusion -- it's hard not to wish that its focus was not quite so narrow.
11/28/07
Top Critic
When you see all of these octogenarians struggling through the snow and perilous ice to make it to their show, you really see what true courage and artistic commitment are all about.
11/26/07
Charming documentary on the struggle to keep Yiddish theater alive against all odds, including assimilated Jews' shame at a language associated with victimhood.
11/23/07
The film's candid personalities provide plenty of memorably off-the-cuff moments.
11/21/07
Interviews with aging caretakers of the Yiddish Theater are vivid windows into a bygone world, and Spaisman herself, a feisty firebrand whose accent is so strong Katzir supplied subtitles, is a formidable personality.
11/21/07
Filmed in real time during the freezing winter of 2000, Yiddish Theater: A Love Story tracks eight days in the failing life of the Yiddish Public Theater.
11/21/07
Top Critic
Its extremely narrow focus on the death throes of an art form, rather than the art itself, limits its appeal.
11/21/07
Top Critic
We can only hope that the film draws audiences larger today than those we see drawn by the Folksbeine.
11/14/07
1 - 15 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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An important film about preserving this magical culture.
by: redballoon1000 11/29/07
by: redballoon1000 11/29/07
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